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THE VISIONARY
389

"The Rajah's Ruby"—until he was asked to repeat, after the clergyman, the words of the service, and then he stood, with Margaret, as if in the infant class at Sabbath school, shakily reciting verses which he did not understand. He put the ring on her finger as clumsily as if he were trying to thread a needle; and when Mrs. McGahn whispered loudly, "Salute yer bride! Kiss yer wife!" he kissed her beside the nose, stiff with an intensity of emotion, the tears in his eyes.

Pittsey wrung his hand. "Good boy!" he said. "You did it well." And Don smiled the foolish smile of bridegrooms.

"Now," Mrs. McGahn announced, "yuh'll all come back an' have yer weddin' supper with me—if that woman hasn't burnt it to flitters." Pittsey was paying the minister. Margaret was looking, a little frightened, at her husband as if she did not quite recognise him. "Come along with yuh! All of yuh! Will yuh come, Mr. Cobbett!" The Reverend J. Sanderson Cobbett excused himself in a low voice that contrasted with her excited pitch of hospitality. She was not discouraged. "Come along, Mr. Pitty. I can't offer yuh weddin' cake an' wine"—Pittsey saw the desire of escape in Don's look of misery—but Dan 'll make y' a punch that'll keep yuh grinnin' fer a whole honeymoon——"

"I'm afraid you'll have to make it a wedding breakfast, Mrs. McGowan," he excused them. "I ordered supper for them at their hotel."

"There!" she said. "I knowed I'd be disappointed some way. Never mind! I've had a weddin' anyway." She cuddled Margaret. "Yuh spoke up like